Christina Agapakis, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & Sissel Tolaas

Could we ever again smell flowers driven to extinction by humans? Resurrecting the Sublime allows us a glimpse of an extinct flower, lost to colonial activity. The vitrine is filled with the smell of the Hibiscadelphus wilderianus Rock (Maui hau kuahiwi in Hawaiian), a flowering tree once indigenous to ancient lava fields on the southern slopes of Mount Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii, before colonial cattle ranching decimated its habitat. The last tree was found dying in 1912.
Resurrecting the smell of extinct flowers so that humans may again experience something we destroyed is awesome and perhaps terrifying; it evokes the sublime. But this is not de-extinction. Rather, biotechnology, smell, and digitally reconstructed landscapes reveal the complex interplay of species and places that no longer exist. Resurrecting the Sublime asks us to contemplate our actions and potentially change them for the future.